


Read

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 12:29:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair remembers something he's read</p>
            </blockquote>





	Read

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sentinel Thursday for the prompt 'read'

 

Read

by Bluewolf

Blair studied the photo of the stolen artefact thoughtfully.

It was a small statuette, hideously ugly in the way that a surprising number of fetishes were.   

Fetish? Was it accurate to refer to this little pagan god figurine as a fetish? With a sigh he decided that it probably was. Come to that, decribing it as 'ugly' was being... Which 'ist' best fitted his instinctive response to it? He had seen so many artefacts like this, that didn't fit the Western concept of beauty, he had learned to appreciate many different styles of artistic presentation, but this one...

He shivered, somehow repelled by it. "Did the museum give you any details about it?"

"Not many. There's not much known about it." He shuffled the papers in front of him until he found the relevant one. "It was described as being 'Donated by a family who said it was a genuine artefact, given by a tribesman to their grandfather'," he read aloud. "It doesn't say where he was when he was given it," he added, knowing that that would probably be lair's next question.

"A tribesman?" Blair asked.

"That's what the museum curator said."

Blair shook his head. "There's no way an ordinary tribesman, in any culture, would have had access to something like this," he said, "and I'd expect any reputable curator to know that."

"Could have been what the family told him," Jim suggested.

"Even so. The only person in a tribe who would handle something like this is the shaman - who would also have been the person to carve it. No ordinary tribesman would have gone near it - and anyone with any knowledge of anthropology would know that. Even if the family had said 'tribesman', the curator should have added in brackets something like 'most likely the tribal shaman'. And even the shaman is unlikely to have given a tribal fetish to an outsider. But I've a feeling I read about something like this a few years ago... Give me a minute... " He pulled out his cell phone as he moved to a quiet corner to the bullpen.

Jim watched as Blair made a call. Tempted to listen in, he took a deep breath and resolutely forced himself not to, turning his attention back to the report he was reading.

'No sign of a break-in... ' Hmmm... would that make it an inside job, then?

It was rather more than 'a minute' before Blair rejoined him; more like half an hour, during which he made at least three separate calls. "I think this whole thing could be an insurance scam," he said. "The curator - *Dr.* Davenport? His 'credentials' are believed to be totally false. There is a genuine Dr. Philip Davenport, but he's on a long-term expedition in South America - "

"How long term?"

"He's been there for the last seven years, and expects to be there another three. He's studying one of the small Amazon tribes in total detail, living as one of them. Seems to have been quite easy for this 'Davenport' to have taken over Philip's identity.

"This is actually the second museum where he's worked - he was assistant curator at a museum in New York. Got the job about three months after Philip left for the Amazon. They had a similar theft - a donated artefact that was stolen - pretty big insurance payout... then the artefact turned up six months later in a private collection. The guy had bought it in good faith, accepted it was stolen and sold it back to the museum for what he'd paid - which was actually a little under its insurance valuation. Nobody was ever charged - the buyer's description of the guy who'd sold it to him could have fitted almost anyone."

"That's what some perps depend on - their appearance is pretty nondescript," Jim commented.

"Davenport left there about a year later, to come here. He got a reasonable reference, but where an assistant curator could fudge things, apparently he soon discovered that the guy in charge was expected to <i>know</i>. He was struggling. What if he was responsible for that first theft, and decided to pull the same trick here? He sits on the thing for a few months then sells it to a private collector. Stays on in his job for a while, then moves on - maybe this time saying he's joining an expedition someplace. That explains why nobody is looking for a reference... He's got the money from two heists; well invested, and keeping to a relatively simple lifestyle, he'd never have to work again."

"Guys who go in for that sort of heist are usually looking to live the high life," Jim said.

"I did say _relatively_ simple," Blair replied. "He'd be doing nothing to draw attention to himself, just living comfortably. 'Course, he might try to play the same trick again, but I'd guess he knows that twice could be coincidence, but a third time would put him right at the head of the suspect list."

"I think we want to pay him a visit," Jim said.

***

Faced with a cop who seemed to be able to see inside his head and know when he was lying, and a second cop (they didn't bother to tell him that the 'second' cop was just an observer) who clearly knew what he was talking about, Davenport folded surprisingly quickly.

The real Dr. Davenport was his brother. His twin brother. Peter was carrying a surprising amount of hatred for his more successful sibling, who had, Peter claimed, found school, and later university, easy; Peter had struggled at school - though, as Blair later commented, how much of that was due to a feeling that he should have done as well as his brother without really trying; there was no way of knowing how much studying Philip had actually done - and had not gone to university.

When Philip left for his ten-year study of an Amazon tribe, Peter had simply taken over his brother's identity, and had actually been able to save quite a lot from his salary. The theft of the first artefact had been an opportunistic one - he had realized that ten years' savings wouldn't give him enough money to support him for the rest of his life, and, seeing a chance to do so, had taken the artefact. Because the Museum had recovered the thing, and the buyer hadn't actually lost any money over it, Peter didn't see he had done anything really wrong; the only loser had been the insurance company, and everyone knew that insurance companies had plenty of money and could well afford the loss.

He hadn't begun looking for a buyer for this fetish - he knew he had to wait for three or four months to let memory of the thing's disappearance fade from peoples' memory - and, possibly intimidated by Jim's glare, surrendered it without a murmur.

***

With Davenport charged and the fetish returned to the museum, Jim and Blair headed for home.

"You know, Chief, you have an amazing memory," Jim said. "You read about that other theft... when? Two years ago? Three? and remembered... "

"Well, yes," Blair agreed, "but this is my subject, after all. If it had been something like a diamond necklace, say, forget it - I wouldn't have remembered any details about that two days later."

Jim grinned. Blair sometimes had the oddest ideas about what was valuable... and Jim wouldn't have him any other way.

 


End file.
